PROLOGUE
GAME
Ipicked up my ringing phone and glanced at the name on the screen before immediately silencing it and dropping it onto the bed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken to my mother, and I wanted to keep it that way. Unfortunately, she had other plans.
As soon as the phone stopped ringing, it started again. She called two more times before I finally answered.
“What?” I barked into the phone.
“Grant, I need your help,” she said.
“Of course you do. Why else would you call?”
“Dani’s missing.”
“And?”
“What do you mean ‘and’?” she huffed. “We have to find her.”
“No,wedo not have to find her. She’s probably holed up with a guy somewhere. I’m sure she’ll turn up soon.”
It wasn’t the first time my niece had gonemissing,and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
“This is different,” she countered. “No one’s seen or heard from her for over a month.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I’m not seeing how this is any different.”
“Some man came by here looking for her. He said she has something of his, and he needs it back. He didn’t seem like a good person.”
“I really don’t know why this is so hard for you to understand, but I don’t care. She made her bed, with your help, and she can lie in it.”
“I just thought those bikers you hang around with might know something.”
I laughed derisively. “I can assure you they don’t. They don’t associate with the kind of people Dani does.”
“So, you’re not going to help me?”
“I’m not sure how many different ways I need to say it, but no, I’m not. I stopped caring what happened to her a long time ago. Nothing you say or do is gonna change that.”
“I didn’t raise you to treat your family this way.”
“No, you raised me to allow family to treat me this way. Which is why I chose a new family. Take care,Mother,” I said and disconnected the call.
I really didn’t care what kind of trouble my niece had gotten into. At one time, I did, but that all went out the window shortly after she came to live with us when my older sister was arrested and sent to prison.
I was a surprise baby born eighteen years after my sister and only a few years before my niece. Dani spent a lot of time with us when we were growing up, but she didn’t live with us full time until I was fifteen. And that’s when things started to change. She’d always been a difficult child to deal with, but it seemed to increase tenfold once she moved in, and I was the only one who could see it.
My mother thought she was the golden child who could do no wrong. When in reality, Dani was always doing wrong and manipulating the situation to make herself look innocent. She thrived on creating conflict between other people so she could sit back and watch. At first, I thought she did it for entertainment, but as I got older, I realized she did it for an entirely different reason. She wasn’t a likable person, so she created situations to get everyone upset and keep the attention off of her. When the focus was elsewhere, she could do whatever she wanted without repercussions.
It worked for years, and it probably still did to some extent. However, I caught on to what she was doing and started pointing it out. At first, my mother made excuses for her behavior, but eventually, she ignored it and acted like I was the problem. I wasn’t going to hang around while my mother refused to listen to reason and continued to propagate my niece’s bullshit. When I’d finally had enough, I moved out and washed my hands of them. Then, I joined the Blackwings and found the family I wished mine could have been.
Blood might be thicker than water, but blood is much more toxic than water will ever be.
* * *
Two Days Later
“Hey,Game, there’s two detectives at the front desk asking for you,” Coal said from the side of the boxing ring.
